Sports Festival

Today was my host brother’s sports festival at his elementary school. It was really interesting. I woke up early to help my host mother make lunch. We made sandwiches, rice balls wrapped in fried tofu, noodles, and some other good stuff. I got really hungry making everything. Luckily I had just had breakfast. My host brothers set off around 7:30 for school. We didn’t finish making lunch until after 8, and then my host father and I biked to school because parking would be impossible to find. It was crazy when we got there. Literally everyone’s parents came. It was the entire elementary school. Our spot was already laid out, with our tarp, table, and umbrella. The whole school grounds were converted for this festival. It’s a very big deal. It was supposed to be yesterday but the typhoon warning delayed it till today. It was still kind of rainy, so they cut out some events.

The day started out with a relay race. My host brothers are in different grades, so I got to watch lots of different events. The grades took turn competing in events. There were relay races, races, tug of war competitions, and large scale coordinated routines set to music. Those were by far the most interesting. Two or three grades would combine to perform a practiced routine. They had built human pyramids, and did rhythmic gymnastics. It was extremely entertaining. I also had a lot of down time because my host brothers weren’t always on. I took that time to read my newspaper. The train stations here sell the Japan Times in English. It take me a while to read though, because my host mother and father want me to explain the articles to them. It’s an excellent test of my Japanese skills, and requires a lot of creative substitutions for words I don’t know. Lots of the paper is about America, but I read one article about Yemen. Apparently there was an attack on the U.S. Embassy. That’s not’s good.

Then we had lunch. That was awesome. I stuffed myself on egg salad, ham, and jelly sandwiches (separate ones, not all three ingredients together). We also had tangerines. My host parents were very interested with the way I peel my tangerines. They showed it to the people next to us. After lunch were more events. The rain started to pick up so the teacher in charge called the last event. It was a very innovative tug of war. Plastic logs and tires were placed in the middle of the field. Then two teams lines up on opposing sides. When the whistle was blown you had to pull as many objects to your side as possible. It reminded me of the beginning of a dodgeball game, when you run to the middle and try to get all the dodgeballs to your side. It looked really fun.

Then the rain stopped, so there was one more event. Then it started to pick up again, so we ended. I went home and took a nap, a long one. I was exhausted. After my nap my host brothers left to go to basketball practice. They are the busiest children ever. They rival the Coxhead/ Nidenburg family. My host mother brought home some DVDs or a Japanese gameshow that is the most hilarious show I’ve ever seen. These guys go around and see funny stuff, but if they smile they get smacked with a giant bamboo stick. Hilarious.

Oh, yesterday I started a journal in Japanese. I want to become literate, and it’s really hard because there are so many kanji. So I’m going to write Japanese every day. It’s much more fun than I expected. And my host mother offered to edit. That’s all for this weekend. School tomorrow, then a three day track meet, but I can’t compete in this one. So just a time trial and cheering on my team mates.